By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
Oxford Community Schools reported the highest number of active COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the school year, Friday, April 16. According to the weekly update, there were 64 active student cases and five active staff cases. Oxford High School had the most student cases, with 23.
“As you can see, our numbers are higher than ever before as we endure a community surge of COVID-19,” the update stated. “We still trust the research showing that school is the safest place for our students and staff as we are enforcing all recommended mitigation strategies and safety protocols. We cannot, however, control students’ behavior outside of school. We implore you, parents, to please help us to stay safe and stay open for in-person learning.”
The number of students in quarantine due to potential exposure to school-related cases was 226. The high school had 138 students in quarantine (9 percent of the building student population).
The quarantine numbers are lower than the record of almost 300 that caused the high school and middle school to temporarily switch to remote learning last month.
In an OHS update earlier last week, Assistant Superintendent Jill Lemond noted that many of the positive student cases were not in the building during their infectious periods and resulted in no exposures or quarantines. “We anticipated this high number due to the school break and our hybrid schedule minimized student and staff exposures,” she said.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported new outbreaks of two students at Oxford Bridges High School and three students at OMS on April 12. There were also seven ongoing outbreaks involving 32 students across the district. Ongoing outbreaks are those that had already been identified in previous weeks but have had at least one new associated case reported to the local health department in the last 28 days.